100 Bible Verses about Old Testament Law

Hebrews 8:13 ESV / 203 helpful votes

In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Romans 7:6 ESV / 194 helpful votes

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.

Matthew 5:17-18 ESV / 174 helpful votes

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Matthew 5:17 ESV / 123 helpful votes

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 ESV / 116 helpful votes

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

Galatians 5:14 ESV / 104 helpful votes

For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Romans 10:4 ESV / 99 helpful votes

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Romans 7:7 ESV / 93 helpful votes

What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

1 John 2:3-6 ESV / 84 helpful votes

And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

James 2:10 ESV / 84 helpful votes

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

Luke 24:44 ESV / 83 helpful votes

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

Galatians 3:13 ESV / 81 helpful votes

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—

Galatians 3:28 ESV / 72 helpful votes

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:15 ESV / 70 helpful votes

By abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,

1 John 5:2 ESV / 69 helpful votes

By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.

Romans 3:31 ESV / 57 helpful votes

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Romans 3:20 ESV / 57 helpful votes

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Galatians 3:23-25 ESV / 55 helpful votes

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,

Galatians 5:19-21 ESV / 52 helpful votes

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

Luke 16:17 ESV / 49 helpful votes

But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.

Romans 8:1 ESV / 47 helpful votes

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Matthew 7:12 ESV / 46 helpful votes

“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Galatians 3:19 ESV / 45 helpful votes

Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

Galatians 3:10 ESV / 45 helpful votes

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”

Galatians 3:24 ESV / 44 helpful votes

So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith.

Romans 6:14 ESV / 43 helpful votes

For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

1 John 3:4 ESV / 42 helpful votes

Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

1 John 1:9 ESV / 39 helpful votes

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

James 1:25 ESV / 39 helpful votes

But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV / 38 helpful votes

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Matthew 23:23 ESV / 38 helpful votes

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.

Hebrews 10:1 ESV / 35 helpful votes

For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near.

Philippians 3:9 ESV / 35 helpful votes

And be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—

John 1:17 ESV / 35 helpful votes

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Acts 15:1-41 ESV / 33 helpful votes

But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question. So, being sent on their way by the church, they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the brothers. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they declared all that God had done with them. But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.” ...

Colossians 2:14 ESV / 32 helpful votes

By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Galatians 6:2 ESV / 32 helpful votes

Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Galatians 2:16 ESV / 32 helpful votes

Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Galatians 3:21 ESV / 31 helpful votes

Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

Galatians 2:21 ESV / 31 helpful votes

I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Romans 7:12 ESV / 31 helpful votes

So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

Acts 25:8 ESV / 31 helpful votes

Paul argued in his defense, “Neither against the law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I committed any offense.”

Leviticus 20:10 ESV / 31 helpful votes

“If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

2 Corinthians 3:1-18 ESV / 30 helpful votes

Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, ...

Romans 7:4 ESV / 30 helpful votes

Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

Romans 4:15 ESV / 30 helpful votes

For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.

Romans 2:13 ESV / 30 helpful votes

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

Luke 24:27 ESV / 30 helpful votes

And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Romans 7:1-7 ESV / 29 helpful votes

Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. ...

John 1:14 ESV / 29 helpful votes

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Galatians 5:4 ESV / 28 helpful votes

You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.

Matthew 5:18-19 ESV / 28 helpful votes

For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Leviticus 20:13 ESV / 28 helpful votes

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

Hebrews 10:28 ESV / 27 helpful votes

Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

Luke 16:16 ESV / 27 helpful votes

“The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it.

Galatians 5:3 ESV / 26 helpful votes

I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

Galatians 3:23 ESV / 26 helpful votes

Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

Romans 5:20 ESV / 26 helpful votes

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

Romans 5:1-21 ESV / 26 helpful votes

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. ...

Mark 12:31 ESV / 26 helpful votes

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Revelation 14:12 ESV / 25 helpful votes

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

Leviticus 19:28 ESV / 25 helpful votes

You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.

Romans 3:19 ESV / 24 helpful votes

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

Matthew 12:1-14 ESV / 24 helpful votes

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? ...

Leviticus 11:1-47 ESV / 24 helpful votes

And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, These are the living things that you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth. Whatever parts the hoof and is cloven-footed and chews the cud, among the animals, you may eat. Nevertheless, among those that chew the cud or part the hoof, you shall not eat these: The camel, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof, is unclean to you. And the rock badger, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof, is unclean to you. ...

Romans 7:13 ESV / 23 helpful votes

Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.

John 5:39 ESV / 23 helpful votes

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,

Psalm 119:160 ESV / 23 helpful votes

The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

Leviticus 19:19 ESV / 23 helpful votes

“You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material.

Leviticus 19:18 ESV / 23 helpful votes

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.

2 Peter 3:16 ESV / 22 helpful votes

As he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Galatians 3:16 ESV / 21 helpful votes

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ.

Matthew 7:23 ESV / 21 helpful votes

And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Colossians 2:14-17 ESV / 20 helpful votes

By canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Galatians 3:1-29 ESV / 20 helpful votes

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— ...

1 Peter 2:9 ESV / 19 helpful votes

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Hebrews 9:23 ESV / 19 helpful votes

Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

Acts 24:14 ESV / 19 helpful votes

But this I confess to you, that according to the Way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets,

Acts 10:14 ESV / 19 helpful votes

But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.”

Matthew 5:21-22 ESV / 19 helpful votes

“You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.

Acts 2:38 ESV / 18 helpful votes

And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 ESV / 18 helpful votes

“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man's wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

Deuteronomy 6:5 ESV / 18 helpful votes

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

1 Timothy 1:8 ESV / 17 helpful votes

Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully,

Galatians 5:22-23 ESV / 17 helpful votes

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Romans 13:8-10 ESV / 17 helpful votes

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Matthew 5:27-28 ESV / 17 helpful votes

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Ephesians 2:14-16 ESV / 16 helpful votes

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

Deuteronomy 22:13 ESV / 16 helpful votes

“If any man takes a wife and goes in to her and then hates her

Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV / 15 helpful votes

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Luke 2:39 ESV / 15 helpful votes

And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.

Galatians 4:4 ESV / 14 helpful votes

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,

Ezekiel 36:26-27 ESV / 14 helpful votes

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Deuteronomy 22:28 ESV / 14 helpful votes

“If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found,

1 Corinthians 7:19 ESV / 13 helpful votes

For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God.

Mark 7:1-37 ESV / 13 helpful votes

Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” ...

Matthew 7:21 ESV / 13 helpful votes

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

Revelation 1:1 ESV / 12 helpful votes

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,

Ephesians 5:5 ESV / 11 helpful votes

For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 ESV / 11 helpful votes

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

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